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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were left for dead after the government seized the mortgage giants in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis. Their stock tanked, and many shareholders fled. Now the companies are flying high again, having cranked out more than $200 billion in profits, most of it in the past two years, as the housing market's recovery took shape. D.C.-based Fannie and McLean, Va.-based Freddie reported Thursday another $9 billion in profits for the first quarter. Read full article &#62;&#62;

Key Democrats Join to Say No to Housing Finance Overhaul Bloomberg Six Democrats whose support is crucial to a Senate plan to replace government-owned mortgage firms Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) have decided they will not support the proposal without major revisions, dimming its chances of becoming&nbsp;...

Following fierce public outcry, a San Francisco landlord is retracting his demand that rent-controlled tenants prove a six-figure salary or move out. Last month, the tenants of a rent-controlled building in the Lower Haight neighborhood all received letters from their landlord stipulating a minimum annual income of $100,000 and a credit score of at least 725, Hoodline reported after an anonymous resident sent in his copy. The letter caused a firestorm, and on Tuesday the landlord issued new letters withdrawing his demands , the same tipster told Hoodline: "After reflection and guidance, I hereby rescind the April 25, 2014 correspondence to you. The information contained was flawed. My apologies for the confusion created." Housing rights advocates say the incident reflects how eager some landlords are to kick out long-time residents in favor of new, wealthier residents moving to San Francisco, where an influx of high-paid tech workers and a subsequent housing shortage has made scandals like this regular news. "It definitely reads like a harassment tactic to me, banking on the tenants not knowing their rights and self-evicting ," Sara Shortt, head of San Francisco's nonprofit Housing Rights Committee, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It just seem so over the top - even most residents would understand it is illegal." According to U.S. Census, the median household income in San Francisco from 2008 to 2012 was about $70,000. Legal experts say existing tenants never had to worry about the outlandish income requirement. "It's an invasion of privacy and there's nothing in the law that requires them to show their income or credit if they're already a tenant," tenants' rights attorney Jackie Ravenscroft told ABC News, adding that landlords can make those requests before residents move in. "For new tenants coming into a building, there's nothing per se that prohibits him from requiring certain income requirements...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Barclays reined in its ambitions to be a Wall Street powerhouse on Thursday and signaled a return to its retail roots with a plan to hive off much of its investment bank and axe one in four jobs at the division.

By CEO Donald H. Layton This week, Freddie Mac reported strong first quarter 2014 financial results , which marks our 10th consecutive quarter of profitability.&nbsp; Net income was $4.0 billion and comprehensive income was $4.5 billion - which means that we'll be returning an additional $4.5 billion to taxpayers in June.&nbsp; This brings the total we've returned to taxpayers to more than $86 billion, $15 billion more than our cumulative draws from the Treasury. Read More

Nationally, asking prices rose 0.8% month-over-month and 2.8% quarter-over-quarter in April, seasonally adjusted. Those gains are in line with March increases and show that home prices continue to rapidly climb. However, asking prices rose 9.0% year-over-year, which is the smallest year-over-year increase in 11 months. Why are year-over-year price increases slipping despite month-over-month and quarter-over-quarter increases holding steady? One reason is that the biggest price spike during the housing recovery happened between February and April 2013, and the year-over-year change in April 2014 no longer includes those months. ... Nationally, rents have increased 4.5% year-over-year and are up more than 10% in San Francisco, Oakland, and Denver.

Mortgage-interest rates have fallen to their lowest level in six months, and may struggle to surpass last fall's peak by the end of the year. Such a development could be a boon for the housing market that had been slowed by a spike that began a year ago.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is in no rush to decide the appropriate size of its balance sheet, but if it ultimately shrinks it to a pre-crisis size, the process could take the better part of a decade, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday.

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen for the most part reiterated views that have been expressed by the Fed's policy-making committee in her prepared testimony before the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

(May 8, 2014) &ndash; Analysis of data collected for the Realtors&reg; Confidence Index shows the market share of all-cash purchases is on the rise, despite declines in distressed sales and investor activity, according to the National Association of Realtors&reg; . Lawrence Yun , NAR chief economist, said the findings are counterintuitive. &ldquo;Distressed home sales, most popular with investors who pay cash, have declined notably in the past two years, yet the share of all-cash... Read More

Consumer Comfort in U.S. Cools From Second-Best Level Since 2008 Bloomberg Consumer confidence last week held near the second-highest level in more than six years as households remained upbeat about their finances. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index eased to 37.1 for the week ended May 4 from 37.9 the prior week.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Government-controlled mortgage finance firm Fannie Mae said on Thursday it would send the U.S. Treasury a dividend of $5.7 billion after posting a ninth straight quarterly profit.

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